Man in Fangorn
by Jaiden.Aye
Summary: Stumbling into Fangorn, Merry and Pippin find more magic than Ents and the armies of Middle Earth gain an unexpected ally from the shadows of the woods. That is, if Pippin doesn't insult him into seclusion first. Roughly from challenge by CashyHoray1.00 "Lord of the Forest".
1. I

_This was originally CashyHoray1.00's brainchild, I just poked at it for a bit with some sharp objects and wrote the results. See? I don't even sort of own a the plot, so how could I own any of these characters?_

_Ocean's Extra, for those of you who follow it, will be updated. I'm not abandoning it, just taking a bit of time to play with other recipes._

**The Man in Fangorn**

When Merry and Pippin entered the forest, it was entirely too dark and entirely too menacing, but when faced with a choice of either a bloody slaughter of Uruk-hai by a legion of brutal horsemen or a pissy forest, a hobbit would tend toward the plants every time.

And so they stumbled into the line of trees, franticly trying to stay ahead of the ravenous orc on their trail. An ugly thing, the creature stood at perhaps five foot flat. While by a man of, say, Gondor's standards that would be a rather laughable height, to the Shire folk those sixty inches marked off a formidable hunk of meat hungry monster.

Even with his crooked back and pounds of clanking plate armor, the pale beast continued gaining ground.

It is a little known fact that hobbits are a rather athletic race. While not always motivated to, a hobbit is capable of dashes quite fast for their leg length, putting all the stored biscuits they ate to work. Moreover, these particular hobbits were especially well-known for their speed. It was a rather useful trait they had been born with which had only been honed further by years of outrunning dogs and the reach of angry hobbit women armed with brooms.

Jumping over roots and rocks slowed them down, though, however quickly they might be able dart over level ground.

Their wrists and ankles were sore, rubbed raw from rough rope. The numerous places where Uruk-hai armor had hit their small bodies with every heavy step, mile after mile, ached with a stiff pain through joints and bone.

Thirsty, sore and hungry (as only a hobbit can be after missing fourteen meals in two days), there was little but blind desperation keeping them from falling to the gnashing jaws following close behind.

They kept running.

Merry willed his little legs to pump faster.

Pippin just ran in a sort of haze of mindless fear. His mind was trapped in the fresh images of the dead orc, headless, being consumed by its brothers. It ran in circles, looped, the same pictures over and over and over until it became streaks of blood and crooked teeth racing through his brain, forcing out all other thoughts.

Pippin tripped suddenly on a large root. Merry stopped, reaching out toward his friend. Pulling him to his feet, they stumbled off again, stubbornly ignoring the feet lost between themselves and the rumbling stomach on their heels.

It was dark.

The only sounds in the forest were feet pounding on dirt.

An occasional odd groan, low, echoing and doing nothing to calm little frantic hobbit hearts.

And, of course, the stream of guttural profanity spewing from the orc's mouth.

"Li'l 'obbit chops, in li'l bites, bloody and drippin'. Tend'rized li'l drumsticks, all red as fresh cut 'orse meat. Roasted finga's, still twitchin' by the fire pit... Duck an' run, duck an' run, soon Ah'll break yer li'l feet, we'll see yew try an' run then, when yer 'eart's sizzlin' over my fire."

He sang it like a nursery rhyme, as if he were a doting mother soothing her beloved babes.

The two halflings pounded their feet against ground, until finally the could no longer hear the rough, guttural mumblings. They stopped, panting as quietly as they were able, and looked around.

The forest watched silently on as they struggled with their breath and the silence.

"Did we loose him?" Pippin asked as he collapsed into the shadow of a tree. "I think we lost him."

Just then, the orc burst out of a line of shrubs. "Ah'm gonna rip out yer filthy li'l innads!"

Merry and Pippin took off. Through a bush, around the rock, over the root.

In the background, "Come 'ere! Filthy 'alflings! Let me put uh maggit 'ole in yer belly."

They found themselves plastered behind another tree, dreading his reappearance.

Merry was struck with inspiration.

"Trees!" He whispered urgently to Pippin, "Climb a tree."

He stood on the ground, eyes watching the shadows for movement until Pippin was up before following suit.

The two troublemakers scaled the tree with all the experience of happier days, suppressing memories of the Shire and ripe apples, instead looking for movement, listening for breath, that rasping inhale of the orc. They scarcely dare to breathe.

"He's gone," Merry released in their new found safety, the comfort of bark holding him away from the ground.

_But not quite, _he realized as he suddenly moved downward once more, _away from hungry orc hands._

He forgot, sometimes, how much shorter Shire folk were compared to the rest of the world. What seemed very high to a hobbit might not be very far at all to, say, an orc who had an extra foot and a half or more to his height. One with a growling stomach and clacking teeth that sounded like beads on dry bone.

He landed with a strangled groan of pain, but still tried to fight back, kicking the orc in the face before all the weight of the berserker creature and its plate slammed him down. Harsh, rank breath played across Merry's face as the orc chuckled over his dinner.

With a rasp of metal on leather, the sword of the orc reemerged.

The oversized knife came up and flashed down towards Merry's neck. He wriggled his weight beneath his captor, shifting himself away from the knife, which sunk three inches into the thick root where a wee hobbit neck had just lain. The orc grabbed the handle tight and yanked it back.

"Ah'm gonna bleed you like uh stuck pig!" Spittle flew into the hobbit's face and eyes, but he dare not blink as he dodged the blade, distraction for even a fraction of a second would lead that knife into his vulnerable body.

Up in the tree, Pippin screamed, wishing for a way to help his friend. A rock, a rock, a _sword_ would be fantastic right now, but the Uruk-hai had taken their weapons as they were captured and a tree was not an ideal place to find a nice, heavy (preferably jagged) throwing rock.

And then it moved. The tree.

To be precise, the tree that Pippin was seeking refuge in opened its eyes and began talking. From its _mouth._ A crack between the crusted old layers of bark opened into a _mouth_.

Which then talked to Pippin.

Who screamed rather loudly.

Meanwhile, Merry was writhing madly from beneath the orc. One of his arms managed to loose itself from beneath the metal weight pinning him. He jabbed his thumb into its eye as soon as he realized his arm was freed. The creature above him was left reeling from the blow. Far enough back, in fact, that Merry could pull one of his knees to his chest, freeing his left leg. It shot out quickly, using all the space available, and his little hairy foot struck the still blinded orc square in the neck. It flopped backward gracelessly, rasping and choking and blinking rapidly.

Merry used the opportunity to roll left onto his hands and knees and make his escape.

Planning on following his previous plan, he darted for the nearest tree, so fervently praying that he could run the last stretch that he missed the sloppy crunching sound behind him.

He was halfway through jumping into a tree when he suddenly noticed he wasn't going back down to the ground, but was instead hovering in the air.

_That's funny,_ he thought madly, _I never knew hobbits could fly. This would've been a mighty helpful talent back in the Shire. _

In truth, the tree which had so frightened Pippin was currently holding Merry in the air while it crushed the orc spitefully into the jumble of soil and roots that made up the forest floor. In its other limb, Pippin was encased tightly within its branches. Slowly as growing grass, Merry was turned until the were both facing the same wooden face.

It resembled a man. There were two eyes, perhaps yellow, perhaps green, bleached of color by the darkness that glared them down. The place of cheekbones was raised as it was on a humanoid's. The mouth and beard were proportional to the rest of the face. A large nose bisected the entirety of it.

All where it should be, yet not as it should be.

Skin was bark, flesh was wood, sap for blood. The large beard swaying beneath the fixed frown was grown of a dark hanging plant, green and stiff. The gnarled nose had a large knot on one side, as a tree's. The limbs that seemed to work as arms had little branches, all with little leaves that tilted in time with the great, mossy beard.

"Little orcs," the tree ground out at the halflings within its grasp. "In my forest."

"It's talking, Merry, the tree is talking." Pippin looked about ready to hyperventilate his way out of danger.

"Tree? I am no tree!" It roared, its low voice vibrating through the still forest, its leafy hands spasming about the hobbits in its anger. "I am an Ent."

"A tree-herder," Merry breathed, awed. "A shepherd of the forest."

"Don't talk to it, Merry. Don't encourage it." Pippin wheezed.

"Treebeard, some call me."

Pippin licked his lips, gathering his courage. "And.. whose side are you on?"

"Side?" Treebeard rumbled, "Because nobody's on my side, little orc. Nobody cares for the woods anymore."

"We're not orcs, we're hobbits," Merry called out hopefully. If they could just get down, or get to the edge of the woods. Or get this Treebeard fellow to loosen up his grip.

"Hobbit... Hmm. Never heard of a hobbit before." Suddenly his colorless eyes hardened. "Sounds like orc mischief to me." The branches entwined around Merry and Pippin tightened further, stealing their air and compressing muscle. "They come with fire, they come with axes. Gnawing, biting, breaking, hacking, burning. Destroyers and usurpers! Curse them!"

"No! You don't understand, we're hobbits! Halflings, Shire folk," Merry choked out.

Pippin struggled beside him, incapable of more than nodding wildly in agreement with his friend. Between pain, lack of air and the resettlement of the haze of fear from before, anything more - speech, breathing, smiling - was completely beyond his capabilities.

"Maybe you are, and maybe you aren't. You don't seem like orcs. But I cannot decide. It is not my place. The Entmoot will decide."

With that, Treebeard changed directions. And the hobbits finally noticed that he'd been walking.

* * *

Many hours into the trek, morning had come and Treebeard found that both hobbits had been lulled into sleep by his great, rocking gait. He placed them at the base of a tree in a small clearing filled with sunlight before lurching off to call enough ents to hold council.

The trees, awakened by pain from their kin, rumbled in discontent.

Pippin came to consciousness first.

At first he gloried in being alive, not pulverized or residing in the pit of an orcs stomach, but he quickly bored of that.

He sat up, looked around.

The forest from the terrible night had transformed. It was still eerie and overwhelming, but the sunlight wove through the flora, returning color and the peace to the environment. The surroundings were no longer a construct of nightmares, instead it was a forest, a gathering of plants and hobbits were wonderful with growing things.

Relaxing, Pippin took in the things all about him, searching for entertainment.

Trees, lots of trees.

Green grass and flowers.

Sunshine.

Trees.

A gurgling spring.

He bounced to his feet and trotted over to the little stream of water. Pippin played his fingers over the surface and it chortled happily as if in greeting.

There was a small bowl off to the side that looked a combination of wood and stone. He grabbed it to drink from, dipping it into the water. As he sat, he took his first pull of water from the bowl.

It was clean and cool, easing the soreness in his throat born of the hysteria and fear from the previous night. The liquid hit his stomach perfectly and he could almost fancy he felt it send a tingle of relief through his limbs.

Merry woke shortly after, basking in the peace of his not-dead state much like Pippin. He looked about, realizing he was alone with his short friend.

Standing, he shouted out, "Hello? Treebeard?" Searching through the trees he muttered to himself, "Where's he gone?"

A low groan echoed through the wood.

"Did you hear that?" Merry whispered to Pippin, who had frozen.

"What?"

This time it was more like a deep creaking or something very large being bent.

"That."

The hobbits moved to the edge of the clearing, climbing the roots to get a clearer view.

It sounded, closer, louder.

"What do you think it is, Merry?"

Then they fell. The roots beneath their square feet shifted and they lost their balance.

Merry fell forward and rolled onto his side before another root pinned his bottom leg in place. He became stuck on his right side, his left eye rolling franticly to try and see beyond soil and plant. He could feel roots moving below him to give room and roots above shirting to bury. The light he could see swiftly vanished.

Pippin toppled backwards, the roots pinning him on his back as he sank. "Merry!" He called.

Merry cried back, "Pippin!"

But Pippin did not hear. His ears were already enclosed in earth and he could hear no more than his own blood rushing purposelessly through his doomed body.

Merry heard the rumbling of the forest. He heard the creak of his ribs matching the creak of the trees. Then he heard hoofbeats, rapidly approaching.

Pippin saw a flash of white across his sliver of light.

As quickly as it had begun, the pressure assaulting their small frames let off. The trees pushed them back out of the earth.

They stumbled away as fast as their battered bodies allowed. Together they sat, silent for once. They waited for Treebeard in the very center of the clearing, as far away as a hobbit could sit from trees in the midst of a forest.

It was a long wait until Treebeard returned to them.

Picking them off the ground and setting them in his high, sturdy branches he murmured, "Well, little orcs, it's time to move. There's still a very long ways to go. The Entmoot meets deep in the forest."

Merry and Pippin swallowed hard, but said nothing.

* * *

The council place was a large, flat glade with a large rock dividing it through the middle, pointing north. Almost perfectly circular, it reminded Pippin of something he would see in a book out of old man Bilbo's study. Perhaps in an action or a fantasy story.

It certainly had the ominously creepy vibe. In spades.

The moonlight hit the center stone and reflected back onto the trees, where more ents were pouring out. At first it seemed as if a breeze were going through the foliage, blowing the leaves back and forth. Then a trunk-leg appeared here and there, followed by a bodies and twisted, distorted faces.

Slowly, the hobbits realized these emerging figures were all ents.

"Beech, Oak, Chestnut, Ash... Good, good, good. Many have come." Treebeard muttered beneath them. "Now we will decide what is to be done about the little ones inside the forest and the orcs outside the trees."

From their spot to the side, Merry and Pippin sat quiet and watched. The sun went down, their eyelids pulled down, but they spoke not a word, listening attentively to the old Entish of the Entmoot, waiting for the lull that would mark the decision.

Listening.

Waiting.

At last Treebeard broke away to walk towards them. Pippin popped up first, followed quickly by Merry.

"Well?" Pippin queried impatiently.

Treebeard bent lower to look them more directly in the eye, "We have deliberated carefully and we have decided that you are not orcs."

"Well that's good news, right?"

"Nor can we confirm that you are hobbits." The two halfings both seemed to recognize the implications this could have and opened their mouths to object, but Treebeard continued over them. "There has been talk of a new spawn of late. A creature born of Saruman's monstrous mind. Our charge is to protect the trees and we cannot allow a threat to the heart of the forest."

The giant eyes of the ent bore into theirs. He seemed reserved, even regretful.

Another ent moved at the hobbits. Pippin caught the movement from the corner of his eye and hauled his cousin back. On the other side, the one they had moved to, an ent leaned down, his bulbous limb barely missing them.

A moment of panic overcame Merry. The dark riders, the goblins, the avalanche, the orcs, and the Balrog. Had they overcome that all just to be slain by a peaceful tree shepherd? But then, this was the first they had been alone, without the fellowship. They were fighting alone with no one's cloak to hide under.

_Are we really that helpless alone?_

Then it was over. Merry heard hoofbeats, knew them. Pippin turned and saw a blur of that same ethereal white approaching.

It was a stag of titan proportions. A hobbit could ride upon its head with ease. It stood taller than a man at the shoulders and was covered in a thick, white coat which nearly glowed in the moonlight.

It slowed from the dash of before, circling the hobbits with a easy loping pace.

"Venison, Merry. Wouldn't a good deer stew sound lovely?" Pippin asked, thinking of his empty stomach.

Even if the trees hadn't started swaying madly and vibrating the ground once the words hit the air, the single second he had locked gazes with that single dark eye would have convinced Merry. "That isn't a terrible good idea, Pippin."

Merry watched the great animal ring them and watched the ents back away like small hobbit children caught in the cheese closet after bed time.

_It's protecting us...?_

Finally the beast stopped his slow trot and turned to look at Treebeard. The ent seemed to shrink before them.

Whirling again to face the Shire folk, the stag lowered its mighty crown and began walking at an unhurried pace.

Pippin spoke first as they both began backing up, "Does this mean it's mad I wanted to eat it?"

"I think if it wanted to kill us, we'd be dead already, Pippin." Merry whispered back, cautiously eyeing one of the sharp points on the rack currently leveled at them.

"Maybe it wants us to sweat first, slow-like."

Pippin stopped his worrying as he backed into one of the large roots bordering the clearing and tumbled backwards in an awkward somersault. He landed on his stomach, cheek pressed to the ground. Pippin started to stand, but his legs were bruised and beaten from the strain of the previous days. They felt rickety, a chair with no screws or a bowl of pudding.

The stag strode forward calmly and leaned down, offering his gigantic set of antlers for the little hobbit to grasp. Once Pippin had his fingers firmly wrapped around the bone, the majestic beast raised his head, pulling the halfling gently to his feet.

"Maybe he's not trying to kill us." Pippin conceded.

He then continued herding the cousins with gentle nudges a little ways off from the clearing to a stream with some of their lost gear laying along side. As the two rummaged through the reclaimed packs, they gleefully set to devouring some of the lambas bread gifted to the Fellowship by the elves of Lothlorien.

Licking crumbs off his face, Merry remembered the stag, "He's gone."

Treebeard emerged. "Well little hobbits, we have a ways to go before you're back in your Shire."

"Hold on a minute, you were about to kill us just then and now we're back to being buddies, is that it?" Merry exclaimed indignantly, his little face screwing up in anger.

"Well," Treebeard muttered, looking as sheepish as a plant man can, "it seems we had a bit of a misunderstanding."


	2. II

**The Man in Fangorn**

Treebeard carried himself and the two hobbits westward with his enormous strides. They went through the mountain range at a speed Merry and Pippin had trouble associating with the near lethargic pace of the ent.

"Do understand, little hobbitlings, there is but one job the Ents were entrusted with- to protect the forest, tend to the trees and keep the peace," Treebeard said in the low, soft tone of his.

"I'll understand perfectly fine, you know, as long as we don't kill each other!" Pippin had a bit of a shrill to the end of his sentence. "Wouldn't want to get off on the wrong foot or anything!"

"Do calm down, halfling. Nobody is going to kill anyone. The Ents were told to keep you safe and so we will keep you safe."

"Told?" Merry spoke up, "You mean ordered. Who can order the tree herders to do anything?"

The hobbits felt more than heard Treebeard speak; the vibrations nearly shook Pippin, who was highest in the ent's branches, off. "The Lord of the Forest has spoken and so we will obey. You are very fortunate. The Great Stag has not been seen here for a very, very long time. That he's awake and back home was very fortunate for you, indeed."

Pippin piped up, "Lord of the Forest? What makes him lord?"

"Little one, he is Lord because he created us all. The Lord Oromë walked through this woodland when the world was still dark and gave life to it. This wood he picked as his own. In this forest, he awoke the trees and gave them speech and thought. We Ents were created to protect the land from the dangers of the outside world. He is as father to us," Treebeard murmured.

"So the groaning, creaking sound, that's the trees talking to each other?" Merry queried.

"Yes. The trees have been especially restless of late. They whisper of blood and fire in the forest, orcs ravaging the green and a sky of smoke. We Ents are slowly losing control. We tell them they are safe, to remain rooted, to sleep once more, but they will not listen. The leaves are full of stories from Isengard and they all ask us where the Entwives are. How we will stop the blades of the Orcs. They have so very many questions and we cannot answer any of them.

"It makes them fearful and their fear only brews hate. I'm afraid your presence has done nothing to calm the fluttering branches of worry."

The hobbits were quiet for a time.

The rhythmic steps of Treebeard echoed through the still air. A bird, startled by the sudden motion, took to the air. Merry watched it enviously. Simple bird, living in the deep heart of the safest of forests. It knew of no evil, only hunger and the wind.

Pippin piped up, "Entwives? What's an Entwife? And why don't you know where it is?"

"The Entwives are the females of our kind," Treebeard sighed in a rush of air and waving moss. "They have been long absent from us, along with the little Entlings. We have waited upon them, then waited for the Lord to advise us, but he has been gone decades before the Entwives dwindled. Now that he has returned, perhaps we will see them once more." He punctuated his thought with a decisive nod, which, while slow to the hulking being, was a bit unexpected for the two hobbits who had to grab quite frantically at his branches.

Not wanting to inspire anymore dangerous movement, the hobbits quietened.

Pippin twitched nervously up in the crown of Treebeard's branches, tearing up a piece of moss, looking about, tearing up a leaf.

Merry was just the opposite. He sat silent and still as stone, gazing off into the shadows of the wood, disconsolate. Every now and then he'd let loose a small, hopeless sigh.

"Cheer up, Merry, I can feel you thinking from here," Pippin whispered, the boredom finally getting to him. "We'll be in the Shire soon, safe and sound with a mug of ale and some good Shire tobacco. Just imagine, a warm room with food and a fire and a lovely bed to sleep in, proper like."

"And just forget about Sauron, his army and the impending doom coming for us all?"

"People are taking care of it, Merry. Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli are all out there fighting. The world's in good hands, Merry." Pippin soothed.

"And if they fall? Aragorn can't kill a thousand orcs, Pippin. And if they fail, there won't be a Shire to go home to."

With that, Pippin got rather quiet. His feet stopped twitching and he looked out into the forest with Merry.

Oblivious, Treebeard continued to travel onward through the mountains, step by thunderous step.

* * *

The leaves were thick, dense and as they walked from the trampled battleground into the treeline the sun all but disappeared. The air stilled, along with their breath. Though the scent of burning orc flesh hung heavy yet on the air, it was the only thing that connected the world they had stepped in to the field from moments before.

Aragorn, being both the unspoken leader and the tracker, took point. He entered first, eyes darting across the surroundings, quickly recognizing and categorizing everything they took in.

Legolas followed with light steps. The fair elf was a near perfect counterpoint to the roughened man he followed: silver blonde hair to wavy dark, fair glowing skin to dirty tanned, and a rigid posture to the defensive crouch the ranger slipped into reflexively. Most of all, however, the difference between friends showed in their presence, Aragorn gave a feel of exhaustion and bitterness while Legolas radiated the tranquility of elves and the wisdom that no being not immortal, even the uncrowned Gondor heir with his elongated lifespan, could hope to receive.

Shortly after came Gimli, panting from the jog and twitching from his nervous superstions. He wanted the young hobbits saved as much as his companions, but the stories passed down through generations of travelers showed that entering the cursed Fangorn Forest was nothing to take lightly. It was one of the first places he was warned away from when he first began his journeys.

From the look of the other two, he was not the only one on edge here. Aragorn still followed the small footsteps of the halflings, but he moved cautiously, as he was want to do in places he suspected ambush or danger. Legolas' hand jerked toward either to draw an arrow to notch on his bow or to draw one of the slender blades strapped to his back before remembering himself and lowering it once more.

As they looked for the imprints in the soil, Gimli cast his eyes about, catching a dark speckling on a nearby bush. Coming closer, he recognized it as liquid and thought of the two tiny hobbits running from the battle. Touching a fingertip to a spot, then to the tip of his tongue, he screwed up his face and spat viciously. "Orc blood," he announced to the others, for once grateful the sour fluid had reached his mouth.

If they were not bleeding and the only pursuer was...

Perhaps they were alive yet.

With a sort of forced hope flickering in his breast, Gimli hurried after the taller two as the group walked farther into the depths of the most feared of forests. The terrain was uneven and unpredictable and he had to watch his feet more than an attacking orc.

At the front of their short line, Aragorn paused, gracefully falling into a crouch to look closer at the large indents left at the precise apot where the small hobbit feet left off.

"These are strange tracks," he muttered lowly, to himself or the others.

Legolas went stock still, "This forest is old, very old." He could sense it now, the emotion and age of the woods, the power that ran through them, dancing along the edge of his perception. "Memory. It's fraught with anger."

The low noise of the background, so overlooked before, suddenly built to a dull reaking, groaning from all sides. The air, so still, closed in around them, vibrating though bone and flesh and metal.

"The trees are talking to each other," the elf said in low tones.

Gimli recalled all those stories of strong men and dwarves and warriors that had braved the forgotten wood, men who never again saw their home and family, the whispers of bloodied bodies, missing an arm, a leg, crushed flat and oozing organs found along the treeline. There were those, either foolish or industrious, that had moved into the unclaimed land along the forest's edge, their homes empty and bare mere weeks later.

The dwarf had faced enemies larger than all his family together, orcs, nameless creatures of the dark that were all teeth, anger and hunger. But his axe was useless to a tree that fought back, to a being which could crush him until it was him laying on the borderland, all blood and oozing eyes and maggot seed.

He couldn't help it, his axe raised. Useless, but comforting.

And instantly the sound rose to a roar until it ground at their brains; the air so thickened Aragorn began to gasp, trying desperately to force air into his lungs. Elf and man spun, searching for a reason why the rage of the forest had exploded so suddenly.

"Gimli," Aragorn choked out, "lower your axe."

With the blade down, the noise dropped out once more, as if it had never happened.

"They have feelings, friend," Legolas spoke quietly. "They say something unknown and powerful appeared here and began it. Walked the earth, waking the trees and giving them speech."

The sudden silence was unnerving. Anxiously, they began moving again, following the mysterious tracks, praying their small friends were not mangled or bleeding, eaten or sliced. Hoping against the fear winding about ribs and hearts that everyone would emerge from this haunting forest sane, if not whole.

Legolas was in front now, the trail they were following now was large enough for even his inexperienced eye to travel and his senses were best, especially in a forest, even one as cursed as Fangorn. He reached out his aura, straining to catch any irregularity, any enemy or an anomaly that could have laid those alarming tracks.

That's when he caught it, barely enough of a wisp to brush his senses.

He snapped his head toward the power, changing direction and hissing in the elvish tongue, " Aragorn, something's out there."

"What do you see?" Aragorn whispered back in the same language as he swung around to stand beside the elf.

Legolas knew that power, knew it's feel and the weight it carried. Dread furled within his stomach.

Slowly, for both of his companions, he warned, "The White Wizard approaches."

"Do not let him speak, he will put a spell on us," Aragorn breathed. "We must be quick."

Out of the shadows appeared a blinding light. Through it, the party could discern the faint outline of s robed man with staff. Retinas burning, their drawn weapons were useless without sight.

"You are tracking the footsteps of two young hobbits."

"Where are they?" Aragorn yelled.

"They passed through here the day before yesterday."

"Who are you? Show yourself!"

The overpowering light waned. As their eyes readjusted, the form before them became clear. In stunningly white robes, Gandalf stood before them, healthy, powerful and unmarred by the death they believed so certain.

Awed, "You fell."

"Through fire and water. From the lowest dungeon to the highest peak, I fought him, the Balrog of Morgoth. Until at last I threw down my enemy and smote his ruin upon the mountainside. And darkness took me and I strayed out of thought and time. Stars wheeled overhead and every day was as long as life age of the earth. But it was not yet, I felt life in me again. I've been sent back until my task is done," He said, with all the majestic charisma that made him so renowned, so loved, so mourned.

"Gandalf." Aragorn spoke quietly, reverently, reaching out a hand as if he still could not understand that his old friend was with them once again.

"Gandalf? Mmmm... Yes, that was what they used to call me, Gandalf the Grey. That was my name. However, now I am Gandalf the White. And I come back to you now, at the turn of the tide." With one more moment saved for friendship and adjustment, Gandalf lost his fond look, eyes shifting to an intensity greater than the Balrog's flame before he turned swiftly on his heel. With a sharp gesture for the friends to follow, he began walking briskly.

"One stage of your journey is over, another begins. We must travel to Edoras with all speed."

Gimli barked out, "Edoras? That is no short distance. Have we have run all this way for nothing? How can we leave those poor little hobbits here in this dark, dank, tree infested-" The trees shifted, moaning lowly. "Ah, I mean charming... quite charming forest."

"It was not mere chance that brought Merry and Pippin to Fangorn. Their coming will be as the falling of small stones that begin an avalanche. There is a great power sleeping in this forest that has not opened it eyes to the world of men since the elder days. The forest is going to wake up and show its strength."

"Oh, yes, that's good," Gimli grumbled near the back.

"Stop your fretting, dear dwarf. Merry and Pippin are quite safe, in fact, they are far safer than you are about to be."

"There is one thing that has not changed, dear friend," Aragorn chuckled.

Gandalf smiled, "Hmm? What's that?"

"You still speak in riddles."

As the troop of four made their way toward the edge of the forest, Aragorn thought back to the warnings Eomer spoke and the hopeless anger that edged his words. He remembered the barren lands of Mordor, the sucrose sweet promises of the ring crawling though the minds of men, and the snarl of a blood-frenzied orc. He sent a silent prayer back toward Merry and Pippin, deep in the grey of Fangorn.

_ It will not be an easy path for any of us._

* * *

Many miles away, Merry and Pippin sat upon Treebeard's aged limbs, rocking back and forth as he traversed the forest. They were all quiet, as they had been for many long hours. The sun was making its way back toward the horizon. It was not evening, but the high ridges of the mountains stopped the sun's rays in the midst of afternoon, making the days seem shorter and the night earlier, longer.

The hobbits realized this fact quickly. Though they had spent only one night in the woods, it had not made them eager to spend a second, the ent would be with them through the night this time, but it was little comfort. Pippin's ribs still ached and Merry still felt that desperate, sightless drowning when he closed his eyes.

It did nothing to cheer their mood.

The knowledge of the approaching dark weighed on them.

As the group emerged from the mountain pass and began the descent down the steep slope, shadows were already creeping across the leaves below.

Pippin almost didn't see it through the shades of grey and dark, but he did. "What's that?"

"What's what, little halfling?"

"That big... tower thing. Over there," Pippin pressed. "Super tall, what's it?"

The treeherder shifted his canopy uncomfortably, seeming to mull something slowly before he finally came to a halt. "That would be Isengard, home of Saruman the White, disgrace to all Istari kind." He hissed through his mossy beard, "Once friend of the forest, no longer friend to any."

Merry screwed up his mouth, "Once friend of the forest?"

"A long time ago he used to walk through these lands with good in his heart and hands. Now," he spat, "Saruman sits in his tower and watches as the orcs ravage it."

"Let's go closer." Pippin said as he dropped down to the shoulder of the ent, looking Treebeard in the eye.

"Closer? No, we must keep the path, we will be in your Shire soon."

"Ah." The hobbit thinking fast, retorted, "But the danger's not gone yet, until this all dies down we shouldn't go home yet. Besides, the closer were are to danger, the farther we are from harm." He spoke rapidly, almost in a slur, and ended with a decisive nod, drawing his shoulders up straight and looking as confident as he could manage.

"It doesn't make much sense to me," the tree-man rumbled confusedly back, "But then again you are very small." He concluded, as if that explained it all.

Turning southward, the ent began his trek once more.

The trees around them seemed normal at first, but as the trio drew near, the hobbits realized that there was not sound, not bird's nests or small animals hopping branch to branch.

Branches that lay still. In all other sections of the wood, the trees shifted, sometimes slow enough that it seemed nonexistant, but always moving. These stayed still. And even though Merry and Pippin thought the movement before to be eerie and disconcerting, the static surroundings made them realize that some part of them had already accepted it as part of the magic of the place.

They thought that an inactive plant would seem normal and welcoming, but instead these trees just looked dead.

It was haunting.

Then the three passed the treeline, still leagues away from the outermost edge of Isengard. And the motionless flora suddenly seemed very tame indeed compared to the expanse of dead land and dead stumps that stretched out before them.

Beneath the small, hairy feet of the hobbits, Treebeard began gasping, emitting low noises that they could not always hear, but could feel vibrating through the stagnant air.

"Many of these trees were my friends, creatures I had known from nut and acorn." Looking up jerkily, "Saruman! A wizard should know better!"

This time when Treebeard opened his maw, they heard the sound. It echoed though the open spaces, bouncing off the mountainside, wrapping them all in the keening shout of anger.

Merry began breathing harshly, his heart hammering as he felt the sorrow and wrath rise in response to the ent's. Looking up at Pippin, he saw his cousin's face distort in rage.

"There is no curse in Entish, Elvish or the tongues of men for this treachery," Treebeard growled out.

A rustling began behind them, building louder and louder more. Leaves in the wind, wood over earth and a rythmatic beat of something running across the forest floor. Pippin twisted around and gaped. Reaching down to jolt Merry back to attention he said in hushed tones, "Look, the trees. They're moving!"

"Where do you think they're going?" Merry whispered back.

"They have business with the orcs," a new voice said.

The little hobbits jerk about once more to see that a man was standing beside Treebeard, looking away from them stoically at the columns of smoke rising from the depths of the wizard's lair. He was cloaked in a pristine white with dark black hair

"My business is with Isengard tonight." Came the low response.

"Yes. With rock and stone. Your brethren heed your call, shepherd."

"I hoped. Too many have simply rooted themselves and given up hope."

"Many have woken up and they will follow you in your charge."

For the first time, Merry and Pippin heard their escort timid, "Am I... Then do we fight with your blessing?"

"I must guide the trees for their own battle," the man said, "However, Saruman shall be mine to defeat." He turned, looking at the trio, then at the mass behind them. The hobbits gasped at the strong, fey face and the emerald eyes that glowed under the moon's radiance. "The Ents are gathered once more. Go with my word and the strength of the wood."

Treebeard spoke once more, "We may march to our doom."

"Still, I am happy that you and yours have risen for this, the Last March of the Ents."

The shape of the man blurred, patches of white losing their shape as they reformed around those hypnotic green eyes that retained their shape even as tints of brown and amber bled in. Then there was no longer a man, but only the great stag from before which inclined its head slightly before bounding off to the line of trees that had begun to bleed away from the forest.

The Ents, numbering a couple hundred, stood, awed and respectful.

Treebeard's voice emerged again, still with that raw grief, but now controlled, "Then friends, to war."

And they charged.

* * *

_Okay, so clearly he's not the real Oromë, but that's just what the Ents call him. _

_Yes, this is also closer to movieverse, because I haven't read the books in a while and I don't trust myself with a strictly book version. _

_Yes, this was a bit of a wait between updates, but hopefully they'll be quicker now that I'm less stressed. _

_As ever, let me know what you think, I'm always in need of critique. _


	3. III

**The Man in Fangorn**

Harry Potter wished he had paid more attention during primary school, particularly in science class.

* * *

_Talking to Dumbledore's portrait, Elder wand in hand, realizing that he was the Master of Death and that no one truly knew what that meant. _

_The wand was new to him, but it fit so right. The power sent tingles up his arm as the newly established bond cemented itself. It was longer than his old holly wand, but it seemed as if the holly were shorter than it should be rather than the elder being too long. The polished wood was darker, rougher, but it all felt as if that was how it was and all other wands were flawed to not mirror Death's. It was natural, comfortable. _

_Part of him wanted to hold it forever. Part of him wanted to bury far beneath the earth, drop it in a volcano, seal it away for ever. It was dangerous and that was part of why it was so intoxicating._

_Eventually he decided on leaving the Death Stick in Dumbledore's coffin once more- where it would be safe. That night he pried open his mentor's marble casket, weeping and mourning once more, and placed the wooden artifact inside, encased by the old, wrinkled hands of the deceased headmaster. _

_The next morning it was back in his own hand. _

_'So, Master of Death,' he thought._

* * *

_Ginny was dry sobbing in the twin's room again. _

_She was quiet, but the rest of the house was dead silent and Harry could hear her small cries from the living room. _

_George hadn't been seen by any of the family since the funeral and neither Bill or Charlie could bring themselves to the Burrow. Ron and Percy and their father were always working now, late hours and early mornings, always with a dry, emotionless note explaining how much they were needed in any place that happened to not be the house. Sometimes Molly baked, but mostly she stood around different parts of the ramshackle house, staring at something of Fred or Bill or Percy that had been left behind. Really, anything of the shining life before the Second War, anything that spoke of content, unscarred times with large smiles. Ginny cried. Harry sat on the couch and pretended he was doing something important while wishing he could do anything at all. _

_He wanted to walk up to Ginny decisively and comfort her, distract her. Now and again he thought about kissing her tenderly and leading her away from the house that held only sorrow and loss in its walls. Other times he tried to convince himself to leave, to Grimmauld Place or travel abroad. _

_But he never did. _

_All of his thoughts were to the three artifacts that followed him since Voldemort's death. _

_Could he even be with Ginny, knowing that he may never die? Never age alongside her? Have a child that may grow to be older than him?_

_That night, he went out to the backyard, behind the broom shed and the Killing Curse hit Harry for the third time. Once again, he was the one to circumvent the inevitable._

* * *

_In the end, Ginny died too young anyway, so he never had the choice._

* * *

_Harry stood silent before two dark slabs of granite that gleamed too dark, too shiny in the strange glare of the sun. _

_The grass was yellow beneath his shiny leather shoes, the sky a dull blue grey. When he filled his lungs, the air burned down his windpipe, all carbon and methane and chemical. _

_Over the years, he developed a sort of stillness that gave away his immortality, an unnatural calm without the small twitches and shifting of normal life. Shallow, minute breaths moved his chest. When he walked, the men and women he passed through parted unconsciously at the waves of inhumanity that he inadvertently radiated._

_The sky was dull, the sun too bright and scorching. _

_No trees broke the horizon, no clouds broke the harsh light. _

_In the midst of it all, he stood, immovable in his grief. _

_The graveyard looked as dead as those it held, brown life and mottled earth. The headstones were perfectly smooth from wind and time, but Harry knew what had been so meticulously engraved onto the rock. _

_Hermione Jane Weasley_

_September 19, 1979 – February 11, 2025_

"_For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity."_

_-William Penn_

_Ronald Billius Weasley_

_March 1, 1980 – September 20, 2033_

"_Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."_

_-Confucius_

_"__I miss you."_

_Side by side, as ever, and now there was only him, standing alone in the graveyard under a polluted sky, watching their graves as the muggles scurried behind him, house to house, clinging to air filter masks like a life raft. Which they really were. _

_Centuries in solitude as the planet withered away into a husk of what it once was. _

_"__Everything's different now."_

_Dying, dying. Everything was dying except for Harry. _

_"__The whole world's changed on me."_

_It was scary, being the last of anything, much less the last of everything. Which he wasn't yet, but would become soon. _

_"__I miss you."_

_The stones were smooth, without memory and he wondered if anyone else remembered nowadays, or if everything left was just concentrating on the next day. _

_The undying did not truly live. He was still stuck in mourning, a thousand years later._

_Nothing but the past for him, nothing but the present for those who lived on, and no future for anyone._

* * *

The stars were beautiful and bright, burning his retinas over again. There were fantastical things to be seen that he had never heard of and would never be able to name.

Suns upon suns. Some lonesome as he, others dancing with each other through eternity.

Comets and other stochastic items streaked through, making cameo appearances before fading away once more.

There were great, massive things that he could not see, but only knew by the movements the surroundings, the utter blackness hurtling through the void.

Occasionally, he found it amusing that everything that there was was floating in a great vat of nothing.

More often, though, he wondered at how much _more _there was to the universe than that which he had spent his unnaturally prolonged life knowing. That his entire world was so insignificant.

* * *

_He looked to the sky, as he did every morning after waking, to see the sun, toobrighttoobrightburningbur ning, flare another, new color. _

_Harry wondered if it was the day he might finally die. _

_There were too many days in his lifetime._

* * *

_It burst in his sleep, drawing into itself until it was too much and too close. He awoke as the flames consumed the soil. _

_Radiation ate his skin from within and without, he breathed air in a desperate gasp which shriveled his lungs. His hair vanished in the heat and the sensitive skin of his scalp twisted away from the burn. Muscles contracting, Harry found himself in a ball, arching and bending his spine in turns. _

_Eyes closing, Harry could feel the Hallows appear about him, protecting their master. His flesh healed and died and healed and died, the pain never parting him, but soothing him as a sick constant. He went from bones to hide to sizzled muscle, pink skin to red flesh to white bone and back. _

_The Elder Wand, Death's Cloak and the Resurrection Stone sank into his flesh, changing form to suit their owner and protector best they were capable._

_Eventually the fire died down as the supernova ceased, the slight acid burn of space radiation still persistent. The fire was replaced by the unnerving sensation of asphyxiation, trying to inhale the nothingness that was space. _

_Dying never grew easier, no matter how many centuries passed._

_The sun died and he died and the earth he was born onto died, seared into nothing and gas and atoms. _

_He flew, beyond the flames, past the planets, through the galaxy and into the unknown, dying all the way._

* * *

The planet he found himself on was the one he discovered the value of sleep.

Harry was on a bare rock, not much different that Earth in its dying days. The orbit was wide, too far from its star, cold and lifeless.

He closed his eyes and wished to be gifted with darkness. He did not open them again until the system died. This time watching the demise from start to finish.

The coloration change, the flares, the burst of orange and red race across the lightyears between the sun and himself.

He gave into the pain and began his journey anew.

Places too hot, too cold, too boring came and went.

It was appropriate, he decided, for the Master of Death to watch the solar systems and galaxies die off one by one. Destruction, the flame of change, was all he was.

It was a very long time, much too much turmoil and disintegration and suffering, before he found Middle Earth, where Harry rediscovered the shimmeringly elusive idea of hope.

The brunette crashed through the atmosphere, blazing through the sky, a meteorite landing in the earth, throwing dirt in his wake. In a spray of rock and grass, he came to a halt, catching his breath as his ribs straightened, healed and his lungs began to filter oxygen once more. Annoyance flashed as he grew irritated with the time it took to heal his body. Legs aching but no longer broken, Harry pushed himself off of the ground with trembling arms until he was in a sitting position. Once upright, he brushed as much dirt and rock away from the patches of skin still mending themselves. Nothing was so frustrating as having a rock heal into the body.

Tired and sore, Harry glanced at his legs, which still felt unsteady. The problem became clear instantly as he spotted a chunk missing from his left knee and a stone imbedded into the outside of his right thigh. He palmed it in one partially functional hand, wiggling a bit to ease it out. Through the dark blood dripping down the surface, a silvery sheen winked at him. Making to toss the rock away, his shoulder froze in pain part way through and he decided it would be best to stay still for a bit.

The wizard sat in a small crater, flecked with asteroid that had tagged along for the journey and little Harry chunks. Around that was a forest, eerily similar to his own birth planet. Trees poked from the ground, young and flexible, all sporting the shiny baby leaves of what would be spring on Earth as the sun streamed down lightly, hitting the flowers speckling the ground. The trunks of the trees were smoother than those of his birth planet, seemingly without bark, the flowers were of unfamiliar colorations, but the resemblance was clear, even through the oddly shaped leaves, short petals and slightly twisted branches.

He closed his eyes and inhaled, scenting the loam, grass and crisp air. He could almost believe he was home.

The ground was slanted under the sapling trees. It took Harry a moment to realize he had landed on a mountain side. He twisted his body around to look behind himself, ending slight twinges of pain up his still healing back. The valley behind him was magnificent, all yellows and purples and infant trees everywhere.

His heart felt calm for the first time since George Weasley, the last living member of his once family, died in his sleep.

The trees were children and he would be as their father. He would walk among them for the life of this world. For the first time in billions of years, Harry Potter felt happy that he had lived through the landing. For the first tie since he had learned the sleep was possible, he did not succumb to it, choosing to watch the growth of this fledgling planet instead of just the death.

And as he struggled to his feet to walk over to one of the tiny plants, the Master of Death felt alive.


	4. IV

Blood on the ground, it had rained red on the outer keep. Aragorn followed the king's horse with his own, galloping down the thin stone construct. Dead bodies of Uruk-hai fell from each side of their charge, fluid, almost beautiful in spite of the dull armor, gaping wounds and hoarse screams.

The length and breadth of Saruman's army stretch out before them like an expanse of dirtied ocean, the pikes rippling and maws snapping in anticipation.

There were too many.

But there were too many innocent lives behind him to give an inch. There were too many bodies sprawled lifeless behind him of the young, the old, the unprepared.

The unknown horse beneath him was full speed, muscles bunching and flexing unbelievably, the ideal warhorse. It plowed into the Uruk-hai with no hesitation, no fear. Aragorn moved with the horse, tensing and fighting and killing. His sword felt as familiar as ever in his hand, slicing through air and flesh alike. Black blood ran along the edge and in the air. In this moment, they were not three, but one entity moving into the sea of scum with a single purpose.

He beheaded one and even as it died it gave him a toothy grin, as if it knew some dark, terrible truth. He knew it as well.

There were two many in front and too few behind.

The walls of Helm's Deep were built for wars, to defend against men and their wants. The stone and mortar could not hold against the slaughter and blood thirst and pure hate the Uruk-hai brought. It was not built for an army of extermination, to hold against a pure genocide.

Neither were the people. It was written on their faces, the people of Rohan, their ignorance and fear. He thought of the fragile behind him and tried for all the world to cut the White Wizard's army from the land. Even as he cut down those who challenged him, he could feel the numbers of the horsemen dropping to the beasts of Isengard. The cries of the children in the caves mixed with the shrill screams of dying horses and the haunting sound of metal meeting flesh.

Aragorn breathed in, desperately calming himself. The dead could be mourned later.

As the stone path met the ground, the ranger was surrounded on all sides and his horse knocked out from underneath him. Clanking armor and filthy bodies became his world, there was no time for thoughts of hope or despair.

Over sixty years of muscle memory kicking in, he rolled backwards and used the dying horse to bring himself up, keeping the sword hand free to defend. Great, dark Uruk-hai loomed over him. Slash, slash, perry. A heavy step behind was his only warning and he dropped, cutting the legs from under one to his right as the warrior attacking from the rear missed, swinging his curved sword into his comrade's skull. In the breath needed to pull the weapon out, Aragon rose and pivoted, slicing open the exposed neck of his opponent in a spray of thick blood.

He staggered back a step, wiping some of the liquid out of his eye.

Another approached and he ran to meet it, watching carefully through his right eye as the acidic blood stung at his left. It started in with a slice that he sidestepped. His sword came up toward the side, where their armor was weaker, but the grinning creature deflected the blow to its arm, making a shallow cut which it hardly seemed to notice. He pressed forward aggressively, making the Uruk-hai step back and stumble over one of its dead fellows. The moment of weakness, of lost balance, was enough to make a swift killing blow.

Another fighter stepped over the dead body. A low feint that he moved to counter without thinking, his opponent slammed an overly large shield into his face with his sword halfway through a useless block, all he could do was to turn his head. It hit the side of his face, opening a cut on his cheekbone and sending him reeling. Aragorn struck out blindly, relying on muscle memory and luck. A thick shock worked up his arm and the resistance on his blade said he had hit. Whistling air on his blind side and he raised his weapon to protect himself, he regained his senses as the steel clashed. A piece of armor was missing so he stabbed through the window and into the chest of the Uruk-hai, removing the sword with a kick to the gut that knock it off his weapon. Turning, he sliced the first soldier's throat and ran to hit another in the back, taking some attention off of Theoden who was being overwhelmed.

He opened his left eye. It was still irritated and red, but he could see the army on both sides and that's what mattered. He was battle and bloodshed and primitive instinct. If Helm's Deep could not be saved, then he would cut a strip out of the army for the world to remember him by. If Aragorn died, it would be with action and honor.

Ideas of hope and despair creeped back into his thoughts. He pushed it back hurriedly. If Gandalf appeared there was still a chance. Either way, he would hold the line.

* * *

Pippin had never flinched for a breaking branch before.

He learnt all sort of new things out of the Shire, but being in a full scale battle was something completely alien to him, unimaginable. The sympathy and regret for every Ent injured, the need to suppress it and keep going. Even out of the heat of it, up in Treebeard's crown, there was no time for breath, no time to think.

It was all pure, undiluted action.

All the stories, all the fireside tales from the Shire lied to him. In the nights of his childhood, all the little hobbits would sneak off and gather around Old Man Baggins to listen to his adventures. The action would start and time would slow, the hero became hyper aware. The hyper aware was right, but time didn't slow. Adrenaline flooded his body, he saw everything and it all sped up until it was too fast and he couldn't react quickly enough no matter how hard he pressed his body to move.

An orc's skull caved from his rock and then another crawled over it out of the chasm and then an ash flattened it under a foot and then there was a torch and _oh god, oh god, oh god, don't let Treebeard catch on fire, not this ent._ And then remorse for wishing the fire on another, but _oh god _the fear was washing over him and _oh shit, oh fuck_ there was lots of fire and orcs and enemies everywhere.

Treebeard was yelling and crying and killing things (because _shit_ they couldn't be anything other than things) left and right. His unintelligible war cries were echoed across the flat land of Isengard by the last of the Ents. The roar grew quieter with each passing heartbeat (because _fuck_ no one ever told you that your heart could get so loud and it was all he could hear anymore) as another tree-herder went down, then another. They were large, but they lacked the numbers and the orcs just swarmed them like a carpet of ants until there was no green or brown in sight, just a blur of blood, sap and flashing metal.

A mob of them emerged from the crevices, a torch in each hand, burning recklessly. There was no way to extinguish the flames and more of Treebeard's kinsmen fell forever. He and Pippin took aim, but they couldn't hit them all because _fuck fuck fuck they never stopped coming. _

Adrenaline rushed through his body. His heartbeat was in his fingertips and everything throbbed. Sensory overload. He was killing things and crying because they were killing back.

Dimly, he heard a shout from afar. It echoed through the throats of the tree men.

"Brace yourselves!" Treebeard bellowed.

Pippin wrapped himself in the branches more tightly and, as he saw the torrent of water rush them, hoped fervently that his cousin was doing the same.

The river hit them like a stone wall. Pippin briefly thought his ribs might be cracked. He decided it didn't matter because all of a sudden the orcs were drowning and the fires went out. Then there were just the Ents.

After several minutes, the river calmed its rush and the water cleared to show just a handful of stragglers that the tree shepherds easily round up.

Pippin struggled for breath, there was time now. He had this desperate need to taste the air and know they had won.

* * *

His muscles were aching. The state of hyper awareness that war brought out of him was draining and he'd been in constant motion for near an hour. No sleep during the night and light sleep the night before, Aragorn was slowing.

The Uruk-hai were relentless. Each additional minute he fought, more men of Rohan fell, and more of Saruman's troops presses forward, fresh and bloodthirsty. The horses died, the men died and the dark creatures kept coming. Soon the soldiers Aragorn was fighting beside had dropped and he was the only one watching his own back. The more exhaustion took him, the more effort he needed to put forth to survive.

He spun quickly, deflecting wicked steel and hacking at throats and searching for an ally. He was virtually alone in the jaws of the brute.

Fighting, fighting.

He forced his lagging limbs into compliance.

There were too many.

If they were the stream and he the dam, then they were funneled to a tiny channel, all the pressure of the river on one rock and he could not hold.

Sun broke the edge of the valley, as did something far brighter. Gandalf charged down the steep slope, leading the thousands of exiled horsemen. The force like an avalanche, a waterfall, something unstoppable and beyond a man. The Riders of Rohan plowed into the army of Isengard with the sun at their backs, cleaving a swath in their wake. Parting the sea of black.

Aragorn kept fighting, but, against his better judgement, something like hope wormed its way into his chest.

* * *

The warriors were dumbfounded, confused. A sure victory and sure bloodbath, they were pleased. But his was not what victory tasted like. This tasted like oncoming death and blinding light and their own blood.

Off to the right side of the army, opposite the vicious horsemen, a streak of something brilliantly white and long appeared. It moved fast and flashed fangs large as their legs. The soldiers faced the unknown, lowering their weapons to create a barricade of blades. The white beast twisted and curved over the pikes, crushing the with sheer weight and brute force. It seized a particularly large fighter by the legs, shredding them, and tossed it farther into the mass of bodies. Gore splattered over the helpless Uruk-hai. It stilled and hissed at them. It was a snake, pure white save the streaks of blue black blood on its jaws and belly. It lay along the ground, surrounded by broken bodies of their brothers. Its head as wide as the length of their bodies, the berserkers felt horror for the first time as the serpentine behemoth seemingly pulsed, head to tail, and grew larger.

One by one, they ran. Surrounded on three sides, there was nowhere to go but back. Each gave into cowardice at their own pace, but the as the numbers of the deserters grew, the more defeat looked inevitable and escape enticing. Within minutes, thousands of Uruk-hai, bred to be soldiers, fled the death trap of Helm's Deep.

Feet slamming onto the ground, the thick plates of armor shifting, heavy pants of those who want to live, it all combined into one mass of sound, like a cloudless storm.

As the army darted between the trees, intent on escaping to Isengard, the cacophony rose, punctuated by growls and screams, before ceasing entirely.

An unnatural wind seemed to send the trees rippling.

The forces of Helm's Deep rushed after the retreating creatures. Aragorn stopped abruptly, sword still raised. Gandalf pulled Shadowfax to a halt beside the ranger.

"Gandalf, were those trees there before?"

"I can not recall a forest here, no. Though it has been a very long time since I saw Helm's Deep." The old man's mouth twitched at the corners and Aragorn was overcome with the familiar feeling of not knowing all that his friend did. "If I'm not mistaken, we've had a bit of help from the outside, so to speak."

Elves and men sprinted, intending on entering the forest in pursuit of the enemy. As they drew near, a blur of white moved in front of them, revealing itself to be a stag as it slowed. The troops stopped, nonplussed. The deer pawed the ground and eyed them, rack lowered. Nervous energy overcame the men, small twitches and shuffles as the animal continued watching them for another minute.

Finally, as if satisfied with what it saw, the stag raised his head and made eye contact with Gandalf, who began moving towards the front.

Gandalf addressed the tense men, "It seems the battle is won."

"What about the rest of them?" Asked scruffy man on horseback, "We just gonna let them get away?" Murmurs of dissatisfaction broke out.

The white beast fixed its gaze onto the man and drew attention back to himself as he stomped his rear legs, once each. Sharp inhales echoed as the roots of a nearby tree shifted to push up part of a Uruk-hai, mangled terribly, chest bursted, face flat on one side, the single leg shredded to strips of meat of a bone.

Not a single man moved.

Some one in the front uttered timidly, "It seems the battle is won."

The stag gave a slow, languid blink before walking along the edge of the forest, hoofbeats eerily silent. The trees began to shift to keep pace, moving oddly, jerking forward into a smooth glide before jerking forward again.

As the forest moved, leaving only strange smear of blood and the occasional limb, the army valiantly tried to think of anything other than the terrifying tales of Fangorn Forest that were just given life.

Among the racing heartbeats and sweating lips, a single elf stood calm, but not unfazed. Legolas watched the stag and the stag watched him. There was some feeling completely alien to him rising within his breast. Warmth burst inside him and he was struck by the indescribable beauty of something he could not quite put a name to. The deer at last turned away and he forced himself to do he same, though there was no escape from the green eyes still watching inside his memory.

Without any real purpose, Legolas made his way over to where Gandalf and Aragorn were talking.

"-not think he would be so bold as to strike at the elves, certainly not when they are heading to the Grey Lands. It will be a kingdom of man, Gondor or Rohan." The wizard said.

"If Isengard still stands, then Rohan will fall. The next battle, we will not have anymore fresh troops for the final leg of the struggle," Aragorn cautioned.

"I do not believe Saruman remains a threat any longer."

Legolas broke in, "Then let us go to the tower for ourselves."

"Ah, yes. I believe our hobbit friends should be about ready to leave the woods as well," Gandalf smiled.


	5. V

_I know, I don't usually do an author's note in the beginning, but I just wanted to preface this chapter saying that this is the point where MiF really starts diverging from the canon plotline. I'll also be pulling more background from the books at this point and, (while I don't think it's anything that should throw you off too much) I want you all to feel free to ask any questions about canon material or the new twists I'm starting to thrown into the mix._

* * *

**Man in Fangorn**

The three horses plodded through the greenery, traveling as fast as they dared with the heavy burdens they carried over such uncertain footing. The small band of friends rode in sociable silence. The four were all weary still from the Battle of the Hornburg, muscles stiff, joints aching and minds worn down from moving so long and so much adrenaline. Having departed nearly immediately from the battleground after the conflict had ended, save a quick counsel with King Theoden, there had been no time for rest as there was none to spare.

With the army that struck at Isengard decimated, the men of Rohan had begun their signature raging festivities. Gandalf knew better.

Sauron had been injured, his hand that was the fallen Saruman was crippled at Helm's Deep, but it would do naught but make Sauron wary, cautious of the power of men. Before they had had some safe haven in the shadow of Sauron's arrogance and bias, an overestimation the enemy would not make again. The Lord of the Rings had not survived all the ages of Middle-earth without noting his own failings. The master of Mordor was not to be trifled with. His agents were numerous and varied and spread wide. He was strong and knowledgable. The Great Eye watched them all and still they were blind to the happenings of Mordor.

There would be no war if the West could not salvage information, insight. Without eyes on the enemy, the scourge of Sauron's workshops would consume the earth.

Saruman. Their last hopes rode upon the information that lay in the corridors of his twisted mind.

Gandalf could only hope that the spirits of the forest were as vengeful as he had thought, if the White Wizard's army was allowed to march with Mordor's, there was no end to the suffering that Middle-earth would bear.

Legolas rode cautiously, taking care not to let the unsteady but prideful dwarf fall from the horse's back. He kept an eye on the ground before them, watching for animal dens or rocks that might trip the animal, guiding it to the safest path. Though he remained vigilant, the elf found it difficult to think of anything other than green eyes, a gaze of ferns and shade. Always, in the back of his mind, was the stag with its heart calling his.

A disturbance in the forest caught his attention. Just on the edge of his senses there was a surge of power. He urged the horse from a trot to a canter, cresting the hill. "Gandalf!" He cried, bringing the horse to a halt, "Something moves in Isenguard."

The aged wizard appeared beside him, Aragorn following on his heels. "There is but one with such power who would walk these woods," he mumbled softly to himself. The old man's eyes deepened, showing his years before he shook himself out of it and addressed his companions. "We must make haste!"

Before them, to the north, an unearthly white was twisting about the tower of Orthanc.

* * *

The two hobbits sat atop one of the few walls that survived the release of the river, gleefully indulging in some of the goods the orcs had pillaged. Between them they had wrestled a keg of mead, a tin of salted meats and some premium tobacco for their sorely neglected pipes. Everything tasted better with the taste of near death in their mouths, the world more vivid with the memory of battle in the dark of their minds.

Consuming the spoils of war, the two cousins spun tales for the Ents circled around them.

Though few of the tree men survived the battle, the few dozen that emerged victorious seemed lighter, relieved of one of the many worries that had weighted their lives of late. The tree shepherds seemed to smile. Many had taken to planting seeds in the dead lands of the forest. Merry had ridden with a couple of ash to the other side of the mountains and watched them coax a few herds of deer to the other side. A particularly tall willow stood at the edge of the clearing, singing in an odd groaning croon to the sickly plants and the seed in the ground. Everywhere green was spreading and life had sparked again about Isengard.

As they went about their duties in the woods, the Ents would stop by their new found friends, listening to the exaggerated stories the halflings had to offer and offering their own, nearly incomprehensible and heavily wooded, jokes and experiences.

It was a relaxed environment, cheerful and friendly and almost ruined by the menacing aura that emanated from the top of the tower where the wizard Saruman lay trapped.

Those in Isengard avoided the tower. The stifling air about it made the closest ents snappish. Broken branches floated closer to the tower, the physical manifestation of the anger radiating from the trapped wizard. The irritability that Saruman exuded was only fanned by the number of ents remaining. Many of the already scarce race had fallen to Saruman's orcs and flames, as well as those who had been vanquished at the end of the White Wizard's staff as he fled to the tower.

Most, as Merry and Pippin had, wandered towards the edges of the stronghold, cleaning up around the outer walls. So it was no surprise that when Harry appeared, the majority of the survivors noticed his presence immediately and welcomed him warmly.

"The Green Father has arrived," the tree-herders murmured as they gathered around him, "at last."

Harry walked into the flooded Isengard in his stag form, delicately picking his way through the floating rubble.

Treebeard stepped forward. "Lord Oromë, you have returned. It is good to have you back amongst our woods."

The wizard's body flowed into a human, letting his eyes sweep across the battlefield before settling on the shepherd. "How fare the Ents, Treebeard?"

"A great many of our number have fallen to the iron and fires of the White Wizard's horde. Some pursued him as he retreated, including Bregalad, our hasty brother." The large amber eyes of the treeman held sorrow like pools. Harry and all the remaining ents were silent, giving a moment for the lost. Merry and Pippin sat on the wall, no longer eating, no longer talking as they remembered the burst of flame that had turned Bregalad into ash unnaturally fast.

At last Harry spoke, "This battle should not have had to been fought to begin with. I apologize, Treebeard, for my mistake. I should have been more cautious in the past.

"Where is Saruman now?"

"He sits in his tower, watching us all, silent. The ents feel his gaze on us, and his bitterness as it burns hot in our bodies. The anger is unbearable, but we have left the tower for you, Green Father."

"Very well. Tend to the forest, tell the seeds it is safe to grow once more."

Stone faced, the Lord of the Forest turned to the tower, steeling himself for the coming battle. The two halflings, salted pork still in hand but forgotten, watched open mouthed as the wizard _pulsed._ Like a ripple along his spine, the man turned serpentine, lengthening steadily. Without them noticing, his arms and legs had blended with his trunk. With the unnecessary limbs gone, the shift sped up, the man stretching obscenely, like a wet strip of clay or a spoonful of dripping honey. Before the hobbits' disbelieving eyes, the man had vanished, replaced by a pale serpent, long as the wall was tall.

But the pulsing didn't stop.

Even as the snake swam toward to the tower, the pulse continued to not only elongate it, but also widen it. The process ceased as the white beast wrapped itself around the hulking pillar to climb it. By then, its girth was more than a couple horses and it had grown long enough that Merry thought he'd be quite tired if he walked along the whole of it.

As the serpent scaled the smooth stone, a dissatisfied hissing made it's way toward them, so low as to barely reach their ears, accompanied by an almost physical sensation of power weighing them down. The sound stopped when the creature reached the top, but the pressure didn't.

White scales shrank enough to vanish into the tower. Hobbit and ent alike held their breath, attention fixed on the shadows they had seen Harry disappear in.

* * *

A dark room, black stone and shuttered windows. A pale glow surrounded the man in the corner, it came from his white staff that he held fiercely. The hands that held the staff trembled in his fury. He felt blind and trapped in this stronghold that had for so long been his haven. The building was silent, save the soft echoes of his last servant, Grima Wormtongue, as the worm scurried anxiously through the halls.

Saruman closed his eyes and focused. The movement of the ents was familiar. The hobbits on the edge of his ruined fortress were unpredictable but harmless. He was unsettled. There was _something_, a power he could almost taste, a presence brushing against his, but only just.

_Focus._

He must be strong. He must be wily.

He should have known the normal orcs were weak, that he needed more strength in Isengard, but he had been so sure of the Uruk-hai and the victory waiting in Rohan. The call of the Ring was making him reckless.

_Oh, but the power was sweet and cutting. How he longed for it on his finger. The power. The Ring._

But no. He did not need the brute monstrosities of Sauron to find his way out of this mess. He was Saruman the White, more powerful than any of the pitiful creatures that tried to swarm him. He was the strongest of the five Istari, the last remaining after Gandalf had been consumed by the shadows of Moria, Radagast had ran afoul of Sauron in the Brown Lands, and the two wizards of Blue were lost in the far east.

He was strong.

_Focus._

Saruman clutched the staff and concentrated on the area below him. The ents had grouped up to the south of him. And then he felt it. The magic came in waves and, nearly paralyzed, he knew who exactly was coming for him.

He was strong. He was strong.

Not strong enough.

But he could be clever.

The wizard ran through the halls, navigating the labyrinth that was Orthanc with ease.

_Let him come, let him come to me._

Flinging the doors open, Saruman rushed to the center of the chamber where a pedestal held an object draped in fabric. He left the doors ajar, knowing that no barricade would keep his pursuer out.

Soft whispering scrapings preceded the arrival of the hunter. As he heard it, shiver travelled up the wizard's spine.

A pallid face turned the corner and nosed through the doors. Saruman felt his own face go as pale as the _thing_ in front of him. A monster the likes of which he'd never seen before. He would have never named the goliath beast as the man he had met an age ago but for the eyes.

Set in the serpent's face were the eyes he remembered perfectly. The unreal emerald was mixed with unfamiliar streaks of yellow, but the weight and age behind each glance was the same.

The pressure of the other wizard's magic nearly sent him to his knees as he moved one white knuckled hand to the pedestal beside him. Saruman imagined he could feel the disappointment filling the air, thick and cloy.

The serpent stared him down.

Frantic and badly hiding it, Saruman yelled, "You will not take me!" Twitchy, he was so twitchy. "I may not have outgrown you, _master_, but I will not bend before you!"

Still too overwhelmed to let go of the marble pedestal, the hand grasping the staff whipped across his chest to uncover the object covered by the cloth. The coarse cotton fluttered to the ground unnoticed as both men looked to the _palantír _that sat upon the stone. Once Saruman touched the seeing stone, it flared to life, flitting through the lenses of its brother stones- the pebbled river bottom, a white room with an aging man standing over it, a cold sea- before settling on a blazing eye.

With the tainted energy rushing through the artifact, Saruman let go of the pedestal and held the _palantír_ aloft in his free hand.

"I am not so helpless as you think." The White Wizard's voice filled the hollow silence that had seeped into the tower. "There is power in the world, more than you could imagine and you will not _keep me from it_." With his final words, he jabbed his staff forward, threading Sauron's strength with his own and sending it at the snake as an invisible lance.

_I am strong._

The burst hit with a spray of blood and a pained hiss. Not one to pull his punches, Saruman followed in its wake with a blunt stroke, hurriedly formed, but thrown with a curve to hit his opponent on the side of the head where the head was weaker. It was less important that every blow be well crafted as it was to insure that the other magic user was not given enough breath to retaliate. He sent a flurry of quick blasts, aiming for the eyes, the sides of the head, and, when given opportunity, the inside of the mouth.

For its size, the creature moved swiftly, dodging the blows as well as his large form allowed, absorbing others in more protected areas of its body.

Elated, the wizard greedily drank up the borrowed power, sending magic out in a barrage of increasing force. His pending victory danced along his skin with little prickles of ambient magic. He poured all the combined power and all his will into the hailstorm of hidden violence. Nothing mattered next to this, this triumph he had waited a millennia to taste.

The serpent drew some of its length in, unnoticed, and coiled it underneath him. Saruman let out an exultant cry just as the man cum snake tilted its head down and pushed its way through the spellcraft to strike at the Istari consumed by his arrogance. It hit him with a great push in the center of his chest, knocking him down to the floor. Inside the orb, the Eye of Sauron dilated, snapping its previously divided attention to focus on the fight.

While Saruman straggled for breath helplessly, Harry locked gazes with the fiery eye before locking his jaws on the _palantír_ and crushing it. The worthless glass, once so very priceless and thought so indestructible, dropped from his maw.

He turned from beast to man quite abruptly, much faster than the transformation into his least favorite body. Harry stood above the White Wizard, his face littered with gouges, mouth overflowing with red. More blood ran from his mouth than a man could survive, torrents dying the front of the pristine white robes bright crimson, moving down the cloth as it began pooling at the immortal's feet.

To Saruman, still prostrate on the floor, the other's face looked to be nothing more than blood and shadows with those scorching eyes peering out at him. The victory left his skin, replaced with the disappointment of before.

"I am ashamed of you," Harry said quietly.

Shame welled up in his stomach, but still there was the ever present ringing in his ear, drowning out all else.

_The Ring. Power. Mine._

"You always were hungry for knowledge. 'More,' you'd say, 'teach me more.' And I did, like a fool. But not just you. All of you have lost your way, lost the words I gave to you with this magic. I taught you to be more than a killer, an ambling traveller, a greedy manipulator."

Saruman made eye contact with his former teacher. His eyes swam with greed and remorse.

"Do you have anything to say, Saruman?"

"I'll become stronger than you, you weak fool." Blazing with hubris and wounded pride. "I'll find the world's secrets and make them my own and you'll regret facing against Saruman of the White," he spat at the man above him.

Harry looked patiently, regretfully at him, "You do not yet see? There will be no more secrets for you. You have forgotten to fear me, student, much like Sauron has, but you'll remember soon and so will he. I am ending you, as my creation it is my responsibility to end you as well."

He knelt beside the panting form of his once beloved pupil and cupped Saruman's face with one hand. "There's the fear." The vulnerable man's pupils were blown, his eyes wide and his breathing so fast he nearly frothed at the mouth. A soft, keening cry came from his lips as he looked to his mentor, searching for pity, open and earnest as a child.

"I loved you," he whispered.

"Once." Harry raised his other hand to his student's forehead, resting his index finger dead center. A heartbeat passed. "Goodbye. Be redeemed in death." And he sent a shock of magic into Saruman's brain, ripping apart the Istari's brain in an instant death. He was motionless as he felt, as the Master of Death, the passing of his apprentice.

With one bloody kiss to the discolored spot where his finger had touched, the Lord of the Forest walked from the chamber, glass crunching under his feet. His breath came unevenly, but he didn't look back.

* * *

The ents felt the aura of Saruman collapse and dispersed, their vengeance satiated. Merry and Pippin assumed the battle over from the movements of their newfound friends, but continued to watch the tower, their meats and pipes forgotten.

The thick doors at the base of the tower swung outward and the mysterious Oromë emerged. Treebeard appeared at his side and they conversed quickly, too far away for the cousins to hear. The exchange was brief and soon their ent acquaintance ambled off to continue work on Isengard.

Oromë walked to them.

"I understand you hobbits wish to continue to fight the war?"

Pippin spoke first, as always, "Oh yes, we'd be off already, but your stiff tree friend people didn't seem keen on letting us go back."

The serene man arched an eyebrow at the excitable halfling.

"Our friends are out there, see," Merry cut in, trying to avert attention from Pippin's admittedly brash mouth. "We can't just go back to the Shire and leave them by themselves."

"Sam'll get in a lot of trouble without our calming influence, you see," Pippin blurted, looking as sincere as he could. Merry was used to playing games like this, but it still blindsided him. Couldn't Pippin see that this fellow was _important_?

Oromë burst out laughing, full bellied guffaws from his gut. After he calmed, he turned to the forest and began walking. The hobbits sat there, puzzled.

The strange man looked at them over his shoulder, "Aren't you coming, little hobbits? It's a long ways to Rohan and it seems as though you don't have the time to waste."

Merry and Pippin shot to their feet, getting ready to hop off the wall into the water below. Both paused, glanced at each other and grabbed the food first.

* * *

_So again, feel free to send me any questions, comments or concerns. I love hearing what you guys think, each one of your reviews makes my heart all warm and fuzzy._

_Also, I'm sorry for the lag between updates, but I'm not going to be updating on a schedule, as I'm sure you've realized. Most of it's that I'm busy, but this particular wait was after I watched the movies again and realized that one of the things I was going to change was rather essential to the entire plotline after that, so I went through and made some tweak. _

_I hope you liked it. As always, y'all are awesome._


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